


Bloodsent

by Hopeful_Foolx



Series: Whumptober 2020 [17]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (as in: gone wrong), (temporal), Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blind Character, Blood and Injury, But also because who do you think I am, Don't Judge Me, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Lobotomy, M/M, Panic Attacks, Sensory Deprivation, Whump, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27178931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopeful_Foolx/pseuds/Hopeful_Foolx
Summary: When someone wants to get the original Elias back, the head of the Magnus Institute gets kidnapped. It's up to Peter to very, very begrudginly rescue his idiot husband. Only because it would mess with his Entity, of course. Of course.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Series: Whumptober 2020 [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945483
Comments: 7
Kudos: 66
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> day 24 - Forced Mutism, Sensory Deprivation, Blindfolded

Normally, Elias likes to work with people who know what they are doing. Usually that means that they are a lot more capable of handling a lot of different situations and scenarios. And even if not, they know at least mostly what they are doing and are willing to find a way to get to their preferred outcome with all means necessary. 

Only that this time, he is on the wrong end of that process. These people know what they are doing, they handle themselves and they left him no opportunity to try any form of escape. They knew to not let him talk, which is why he has a gag in his mouth, with tape over it so he can’t even move his lips. They also seem to think that cutting off his sight would be a good idea, which leaves him mainly blind and mute.    
Leaves him helpless.    
He can still hear, but there is not a lot to hear. The whirr of a camera, and the click when someone presumably changes battery or memory card. His wrists are bound to the chair with tape, there is a lot of tape involved, actually. Around his wrists, ankles, he feels it square over his torso too, taping his tie to his chest and him to the chair. It’s not like could move before, it seems a little dramatic, but he has a suspicion who is responsible here. Who kidnapped him, who he could not See. He’s never heard their voices before, of course, but they only delivered him here and taped him like a parcel prepared for overseas.    
Someone else keeps coming in, and he thinks he knows her steps by now. He has not heard her talk, he has not heard her make any noise at all besides the steps on the stone floor. Hearing is all he can focus on, listening to anything he could use to escape. He can’t. And nobody is coming for him.    
He is patient, one does not wait and scheme and live for over two hundred years otherwise, there are only few options - either they let him go when they realize they can’t get what they want - not like they asked, or anything like it - or they leave him here to rot. He is not fine with the latter option, because that would be an enormous waste of time, and he could actually die. Maybe. But more importantly, he tries not to think about it too much. It’s… Well. It’s not easy since he has nothing else to do  _ but  _ think. So he thinks about what he knows, what he can See, what he hears and feels. He knows not a lot - the room, the camera. 

He knows the steps. He knows his archivist is involved - a bother, really. He knows they are not actively harming him, so they likely want him alive - or maybe not exactly him. He suspected Gertrude knowing that Elias Bouchard is not, in fact, Elias Bouchard anymore, and he has a growing suspicion that they may want him back. Which is not possible - especially not like this. But nobody asked, so he is alone with his theories. There are a few more, a ritual near London he looked into, the Stranger, he believed, and the fact that only Breekon and Hope would be able to make him disappear like that, well. It works. He knows he doesn’t want to stay away from the Archives for too long, knows he also shouldn’t. He knows nobody will come for him, but that is just a fact, that is not important. He knows Peter is away and that is the only Avatar who would maybe help, but he won’t know and so it’s not important.    
Elias also knows that he is helpless. Which is interesting, he hasn’t felt like this in a hundred years, maybe more, he has no control over his situation and he is… not scared, but unsure of how to proceed. He can’t do anything.    
He knows that four days pass until someone comes into his room (he’ll call it that) and starts mangling with his arm. He can’t really do anything, too much tape involved, and he can’t see either. He feels the hands, hears and feels breaths on his face. Saying something himself isn’t possible and pride forbids him to make a noise. It would be even more humiliating, but he can’t keep it in when a cold needle stabs his arm. What are they trying? It’s a little exciting, actually, they drugged him when he got here, funny enough, but now? Is there a plan to move him?   
He is so excited about literally anything happening that it takes him an embarrassing long moment to realize that the needle stays in. 

Oh. 

_ Oh _ _  
_ It has indeed been a while since someone did  _ that _ . How long ago did people stop treating fevers with bloodletting? He remembers it, Jonah Magnus had been prone to them, and still the memory is further away. Which is interesting. Something to think about, for the time to come. The door closes and he feels his arm go cold. His fingers, hand. The wound can’t close because the needle is in it, but it’s still not enough to kill him. What do they want?    
  


Seven days and he has to admit to himself that he is growing weaker. His involuntary bloodletting goes on for four of them, but the only thing that happens is that he is dizzy without a break. He loses consciousness in between and welcomes it, because for a moment he is out of his turning head, he is away from the unbearable cold in his arm. The numbness overtaking it. In lucid moments he asks himself if he will lose his arm, but then he realizes that they switch and he also gets that they don’t want to kill him, despite doing their best trying. They have a plan, must have a plan. He started humming in the back of his throat some time ago, not sure if he does it or not. It feels metallic and stale. His whole mouth does.   
They stop, at one point. He misses it, sadly, only wakes up to the absence of a needle in his arm. His sense of time has not left him, he Knows it even when he can’t do so with anything else. Eight days. The click of the camera. The door. He doesn’t hum anymore, the short distraction gone. How ironic would it be? Jonah Magnus, gone mad inside his own head. He stubbornly refuses to, but it’s a matter of time until he won’t be able to. It’s… Yes. This counts as frightening.    
The ninth day begins and someone comes in, throws the door open and he lifts his head - no camera click, no changing the battery, no needle in his arm. He doesn’t know what happens, but in the next moment, noise and sensations, the stale taste and all he was still able to feel disappears.

And he is sure he must be dead.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 31 - experiment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is a more graphic chapter, I feel the need to warn. It's from Peter's POV and there is a lot of blood involved, so be safe :)

There is a constant on the Tundra. Not a routine, a routine leaves not enough time to dwell on his own loneliness. A routine has space for other people, a special space. Peter Lukas likes to think that his life disconnects him from everyone else. He is never away for a certain time, it always varies, and who would wait? He forgoes routine in favor of isolating unpredictability. He needs nobody else, or so he likes to think, he doesn’t need to care or think about anyone else. And the only person he does think about sometimes is always far away, even when they are together, even when there is not an inch between them, they are apart. They will never understand each other on the same level, never meet on a common ground. Because Elias takes and Sees, and Peter leaves and they are both so unpredictable it’s almost like a dance. But one on the edge of a sword, one wrong step and it goes up in flames. Sometimes it does. Then they fight, and he leaves or Elias leaves him and oh he bathes in the rejection for weeks on end. Until he misses him again, and then it’s a different kind of pain. It’s always on the edge of good, but never really. They are not good people, but they are what each other needs. And that’s the constant, because Elias’ presence is always somehow there. No matter where he is, how far away. He can’t See him, reach him, and oh how does Peter know he wants to, sometimes. Because every time he is on land, he knows his every step is watched. Not here, but still, Elias is there. His only constant. Deep in his mind, like a heartbeat he can’t really grasp, that is not his own but still there, knowing there is someone he is apart from. He barely even notices it, only once, actually, when it was gone. The day James changed into Elias, it had been still for a short time.    
And today.    
He nearly stumbles on his way to his quarters, has to brace himself against a wall when it hits him, like someone cut a tread from his brain to another and now he’s falling freely. The ocean is calm and quiet. There is no storm, no reason for a disruption. He stops and waits for it to come back. He is so used to it that the ship suddenly feels much quieter, much… Not more lonely. But different. He steps into his room and closes the door, sits down on the bed and waits. Closes his eyes and searches for it, but it’s gone. Not even a faint echo. It leaves him uneasy, because there are not a lot of reasons it could be gone. It can’t be the distance - they are only two days away from London, and he’s been gone much longer before, and Elias does not travel far from the Institute, not without months of planning. It could be that he died. Peter expects a backslash from that, but maybe that is just him hoping that he is wrong - very wrong. 

“Damn it Elias, what have you gotten yourself into this time?!” he faintly hopes that there will be something reacting to it, but nothing comes. 

  
  


The two days it takes to reach London are actually just 36 hours. The impatience in his chest is wrong, too warm, he is not at ease in a way that disturbs him, it’s not melancholie but something more closely resembling anger. With whom? He does not know. Why would he be angry?    
The feeling is gone, utterly gone. Elias is either dead, or lost his connection to the eye - how could he have lost his connection?    
It gets worse when he visits the Institute as first action on land. He gets in unseen, but Elias’ office is empty and deserted. The door is locked, everything is neatly ordered and not even a pen is out of place - just the calendar is stuck last week’s wednesday. It’s a small detail, but so utterly and bitterly out of place still. He even asks the secretary, who informs him he was working from home.    
Elias’ flat had been his next approach then. Brown apples in a bowl, the milk in the fridge gone bad. He checks every room, but nothing seems like he had even been here for a week at least - the calendar shows the same date as in the office. No shoes, no coat, the tiniest layer of dust on the black countertop. 

“Where the hell are you…” he mumbles. The feeling is not back, but there is something else. A gnawing  _ something _ that he overlooks. At this point he is fairly sure something must have happened - Elias wouldn’t disappear, he’d do many things but this? Cut off from everything, even the eye most likely? No. And Peter should not look for him, he knows that too. Whyever he got lost, he probably deserves it. It’s not his job to act as a babysitter, even if they are married right now and he could. They don’t help each other, not really, do they? Still the feeling stays. He shouldn’t, but he wants to, and as soon as he knows that, he also knows that it’s not what is bothering him. Of course, the whole situation bothers him, Elias can’t just disappear like that, he just can’t! He is usually annoying but not like this. But something in this flat is wrong. He knows it well enough, nothing really changes because even if Elias lives here, he doesn’t do a lot. Not like it looks lived in, in any case. There is just-    
He stops in his tracks with the sudden urge to roll his eyes into oblivion. Spiderwebs. There are many things he knows about the head of the Magnus Institute, an even larger number of things he does not, but spiders? Dust is bad enough, but there are an awful lot of webs in the kitchen. Either the room got taken over by the Web, or it’s a message. He doesn’t communicate with the spider, why would he, but he knows Elias does. Which does not mean that Peter is a big fan of the cryptic puzzles between them, however.    
“Just talk to me” He sighs and leans against the countertop, “If you want me to find him, you need to tell me, because I won’t follow around clues around the city like I’m on a damn egg hunt”

Like on command, the phone rings.

  
  


He looked up the address. It’s not far, but doesn’t ring a bell either, but when he stands in front of the storage, Peter feels like he should have known someone like Jonah Magnus, would not settle for a simple flat alone. Even if that is top shelf modern, it seems like he couldn’t really let go of things. Especially since the entire floor of the cellar belongs to him, as it seems. 

Whoever had been in here, they left in a hurry he suspects when he checks the rooms. The cellar is dry, fairly cold, and while most of the rooms have neatly stacked furniture, a few contain either nothing, or just some shelves with boxes. One has a few chairs and a smashed video camera, the memory chip still in it when he checks. Bloody footprints on the floor. He takes the chip and resumes checking the rooms - or the room the bloody footprints lead to. The green metal door is slightly open. Is it a trap? He feels nobody else - or, to put it better, he feels that he is alone. If there is someone else here too, they’re either hidden even from the Forsaken or… Or what? He doesn’t know, but the chance they saw him coming is fairly small, since he only stepped out of the Lonely down here. If he is alone, then… No, it makes no sense. None of this does. 

“Elias?” He gently pushes the door all the way open. It scrapes over the floor like it belongs to a grotesque movie, and the scene he sees before him would befit one too.   
The first thing he notices is however not the scene, but the smell. Blood. He sees it a moment later too, dried on the floor under the chair a man is slumped over in. A man that only barely resembles the Elias he knows. Blue tape covers his mouth and eyes, his jacket is gone and his shirtsleeves are both drenched in red - nearly brown now, dried against his skin. A tube dangles from one arm and connects to the blood on the floor, his hands are limp and both his forearms are taped to the chair too. The damn tape even goes around his torso, the only thing keeping him upright as it seems. It’s not the worst, and he realizes only now that he is frozen in place by the door still. There is something in his head. He can’t avoid the blood when he steps closer and in it, a human body is not able to lose this much of it and a heavy and cold feeling settles in his stomach, it doesn’t go away when he presses two fingers to Elias’ neck and feels the pulse, because his hands tremble the slightest bit. But he is breathing. Has a pulse. He is, impossibly, alive. He should not be by all rules of logic, especially since the object in his head turns out to be a screwdriver. It’s deeply embedded in his head, his hair matted with blood. He winces when he inspects the wound. It’s closed around the edges, but Elias can’t heal all the way with it in his skull. Does he even feel it anymore? Is he so completely gone from the world? He still has two fingers on his pulse just to be sure, he sees him breathe but… 

“Elias?” he asks again, even if he is too sure he knows he can’t hear him, because Peter feels that he is the only consciousness in the room. He takes out a pocket knife and cuts the tape on his arms loose. When his hands brush over his skin, he feels how cold it is. Even to Peter, who runs cold already. The heavy feeling only gets heavier.    
This is bad. He only remembers a handful of occasions this bad, and none of them included Elias this way. He pulls the tape off his eyes to find them partly open and unseeing, bloodshot, one of them red where white should be. He removes the tape on his mouth too, cracked and dry lips, throws the gag away to the side. They really didn’t want him to make even one noise. He is limp in his hold, cold, if he didn’t know he was breathing, and he has to remind himself, he has to remind himself he is breathing, he has a pulse, he is alive, he would think he’s holding a corpse. Ever so careful with the screwdriver embedded in his skull, and even more so with all the blood. He removes the tube, but leaves his head alone. He didn’t plan this through. How is he going to get Elias… Out of here? He doubts his captors will come back, and still, they can’t stay here. He needs to get him to a safe place, somewhere nobody will look for him. Somewhere…    
He can make arrangements, it won’t be welcome, but then again, nobody would actually notice. The bigger problem is what he should do right now - while he can get Elias back to his flat without anyone noticing, he can’t just let this thing stay in his head. The other option, pulling it out, is however also not ideal. He can’t turn to anyone to help. It’s just… what if he kills him with it? On the other hand, if it stays in, he won’t be of any use either. Or come back at all. But anyway, he can’t do it here. For now, he’ll get him to his flat, patch him up… wash the blood away. Before that, he gently pulls him into his arms. He’s gentle with it, careful to hold him and have his head steady, leaning against his shoulder.    
  


The way back to the flat is short and quick, nobody looks at them, even if anyone wanted to, they’d only feel an overwhelming sensation of loss. It’s the closest to the Lonely he dares to go, the closest that is possible with an injured beholder.    
The buzzing is not back. 

  
  


“For the record, you are more trouble than you are worth. If you ever get kidnapped again, save yourself” he grumbles, takes a hold around the handle and…   
Pulls.    
There are a lot of sounds he thinks he can get used to. He got used to the Tundra in the matter of a day, even with the noise from the ship alone, he got used to the city even while hating it. He got used to Elias’ voice, and frankly, he is proud of that. Pulling out that screwdriver makes a sound he never wants to hear again, ever again. Sucking and crunching at the same time, he doesn’t look at it and just throws it away - it lands on the floor with a pling. Elias makes no noise or movement whatsoever, even when Peter presses the towel on his head, nothing follows.    
Peter takes off his coat and starts undressing him. The sleeves stick to his skin, stiff with blood, and his skin is still so, so cold. He wipes it off as best as he can, a bath would do better but is also not an option. He looks… fragile. Granted, Elias  _ is  _ shorter than him, but normally he still doesn’t look like he is… Like this. Ghostly pale, the bandages around his head and covering his eyes - Peter doesn’t like it, but he also can’t really do it any other way. It takes him almost half an hour to get him somewhat blood-free and wrapped up. There are fine scars in the crooks of his arms, and he supposes he should take it as a sign that they’re healing. He puts Elias under the covers in his underwear, checks his pulse and breathing again - slow. Steady. He’s unconscious, asleep, dead to the world.    
What happened? It’s a fairly obvious question - what happened? He can see the torture, he has an idea of what exactly took place, but why? If the Web wanted him to find Elias, then there is a chance it’s all a bigger picture. A ritual, perhaps? He thinks of the chip in his pocket, but won’t look at it now. Later, when they are safe, when Elias is safe, he will give in to his curiosity. Right now he won’t, he just waits for a sign of awareness. Now, that there is nothing in his head anymore, he can heal, right? He should, by all means. What has he gotten himself into? Who could kidnap Elias Bouchard - Jonah Magnus, by all means. Who could is the question because everyone  _ would _ if they got the chance. He’s made a lot of people quite angry over the time. 

There is an almost inaudible groan next to him, and when he looks… Peter leans forward to confirm that he is actually seeing right. Elias is trembling, his whole body is. Slowly, carefully and shaking so badly he wants to put it down again, his hand goes up to his head and over the bandage, touching the edges and it’s then that Peter reaches out, when he pulls at it.

“Don’t” he says softly, unprepared for the full-body flinch that follows, and Elias’ weak attempt to get away from him, the choked off cry that follows. He retreats immediately. 

“Okay, so your brain did not heal  _ that _ fast” his movements are sluggish and slow and he feels around the bed, half sitting, tangled in the heavy blanket Peter put him under. It gives him an idea and he removes his coat and puts it over his shoulders. Elias stiffens for a moment, only tension and nothing else, then he feels around the edges and looks around, reaches out himself. His fingers grip at the coat as if he is sure it would disappear any second.

“Pe-Peter?” It's hoarse and only audible because the room is so quiet. 

“Yes, that’s me” he says even if he supposes Elias can’t hear him and sits down on the mattress, taking his hand. Long, fine and still trembling fingers feel over his hand and then, again without warning, Elias relaxes like a puppet with all strings cut, falling over in the process.   
“Easy, take it slow” he mumbles when he catches him.

“No, wouldn’t... Did? Would? No, sure… Did… come?” Peter sighs and pulls his coat tighter around him, before pulling the blanket up too and just wrapping him in all the layers. Elias clings to the fabric like there is nothing else in the world as stable as this. It takes Peter a while, holding him like this until he realizes he fell back asleep. He is not used to Elias being so quiet. He carefully lays him down onto the bed again, safely and warmly wrapped up, but doesn’t stay. Even now he can’t. 

  
  


_ He wakes with a start. There are cars outside, people in them, he Sees them, hears them talk, a woman and her children, a man and his wife, newly married, the young woman down the street, he rushes through them, can’t listen to their voices because the cars are too loud, because he can’t listen to them, it’s one loud noise in his head, like it’s split in two, worse than the thing he got to his head, what was in his head? Screwdriver, it’s gone now, where, where is he? Why? He runs into a wall of fog and clutches at his head, it’s wrong, he can’t see, his eyes don’t work, why? _

  
  


Peter is mapping out his next steps. If somebody will come for them, he needs to get Elias away from here, but he can’t do it now. He isn’t stable enough to be moved, and he can’t take him to the Lonely like this. While he does think about calling one of the Lukases drivers. They don’t ask questions, don’t talk. To bring him somewhere safe. With nobody else around until he is better. Annoying for Peter, yes, but also safe. Much safer than here, in any case. There is a house he can use, his own, actually, but he is rarely there, it doesn’t have the same effect as his childhood home. Still, he spends time there sometimes and he knows nobody will expect him, nobody will look for them there, since nobody has stepped foot in it for a long time. Between furniture protected under white sheets and the lonely servant living there still, they should be safe. 

He has just put the phone down from his arrangements when Elias suddenly starts to scream. 

  
  


He runs into the room, fully prepared to see another Avatar, someone who, against all odds, managed to get in here, past Peter. But it’s just Elias, curled tightly into himself on the bed, hands above his ears and face pressed into the pillow. His scream gets muffled by it now, and when Peter finally gets what’s wrong, he curses himself. He doesn’t realize that the buzzing is back until it hits him and he feels Seen, Watched, just for a second, before Elias screams again and pulls back. Of course, he has seen the Beholder lost before, he has seen him not able to stop the Eye from using him. He knows it hurts, but this? He’s been cut off from the Eye, and it’s now crashing all back. He puts a hand over Elias’ on his ears and sits down on the bed again, trying to alert him of his presence while not hurting him further. He doesn’t resist, doesn’t react at all, if he is aware of someone touching and moving him, it’s not visible. Blind eyes are open wide, white and red, lips pressed together in an attempt to keep quiet, but it only works for a moment. Blood drips down his forehead from where he somehow pulled the bandage off and it makes Peter cringe. No attempt in reaching him gets through, and he gives up after a short moment - there is not much he can do, if his suspicions are right. He only got cut off from his own entity once, and it nearly sent him too deep into the Lonely for even an Avatar to find his way out. The feeling of being outside, connected to the Lonely as if he hadn’t ever been there before, it had been so overwhelming he has a memory gap of nearly an entire week. 

Peter doesn’t think it’s over when Elias passes out. They are not that lucky. His eyes are still half open, still unseeing, he presses them closed. Tapes gauze over the hole and leaves the bandages off, just until he has dressed him in something. It’s partly healed on the edges and still leaking blood, it had healed around the screwdriver, so why is it so slow now? Because he ripped it out? He doesn’t know for how long it had been in there, he decides then, and the wound had been deep. He could have died, and he didn’t, it’ll take time to heal. 

“You are going to hate this, but I don’t really care” he mumbles when he sits him up. He is not as boneless as expected, and startles when he leans him against the pillows.

“What?” His hand twitches and he reaches out again, until Peter takes it, not even really knowing why.

“With me again?” he asks quietly and watches him blink, “Still Seeing?” 

  
“Stopped. Will… again. Track?” His voice is weak and hoarse from screaming, tired. His tongue doesn’t seem to comply, words hacked and not making a lot of sense. He gets the gist of it, yes, but doubts he could articulate himself really.

“I need to move you, so you need to hold still, alright?” He lets go and gets the first clothes he can find in the closet that are not waistcoats and shirts, surprised to realize he owns a few woolen jumpers. He wouldn’t suspect him to wear them, but then again - the Archives do get cold. He’d be outright shocked to find a T-Shirt and would be tempted to look, if the situation was a tiny bit less serious.

“Why?” Elias looks around the room, or so it seems because he really only moves his head, one hand on the taped-shut hole and one feeling around the blankets. 

“We’re not safe here, and I’d rather not take you to the Lonely. You’re healing too slow, and I won’t take chances. Too much effort in the whole rescue part to lose you now” His attempt at humor falls flat, and he is fairly sure Elias doesn’t even really understand him.

“Archives. Pan- Panopticon” he grits out when Peter dresses him, he isn’t really helping, only gets tangled up in his sleeve when he tries anyway. He ignores it.    
  
“Yes, but it’s not safe. Your Archivist is there, and if she did manage to get to you before, she will again, especially like this” Elias keeps his mouth shut in a thin white line and doesn’t answer.    
“I need to wrap your head again, don’t startle,” he warns. There is a red spot on the white again. How long will it take? To heal this? 

“Tired” Peter chuckles. With all that happened, it doesn’t surprise him. And sleep probably helps him to recover, even the healing factor has a limit. Still, even if he didn’t say anything at all, he looks exhausted. Blood loss, having a screwdriver yanked from his head, it all comes together to a big blob of ‘not good’ when he thinks about it. 

“At least you can hear me again” he mumbles, “And even talk, a little” Again, Elias doesn’t answer, but he holds on to Peter’s jumper with weak fingers. It’s strange. This morning, he stepped off his ship to go find Elias because he probably got himself into trouble. Prepared for it to be… what? A hoax? He has no such thoughts now, on the contrary. He even hopes he’ll be alright. He is glad he is alive. It’s… It’s strange. He will call it strange and nothing else.    
“We’ll get you somewhere safe and then you can rest” He finally settles on. The weak grip tightens. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading <3


End file.
